In the first place, it is quite evident that impulses derived from herd feeling will enter the mind with the value of instincts—they will present themselves as "a priori syntheses of the most perfect sort needing no proof but their own evidence."
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

I hope, in the course of Part II., to go over all the ground usually traversed in the text-books used in our Schools and Universities, and to enable my Readers to solve Problems of the same kind as, and far harder than, those that are at present set in their Examinations.
— from Symbolic Logic by Lewis Carroll

All things considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as any relations of human rank that men can fix upon.
— from Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The royal commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Roberts was won upon by the Peculiarity and Bluntness of these two Men, and gave them Powder, Arms, and what ever else they had Occasion for, spent two or three merry Nights with them, and at parting, said, he hoped the L— would Prosper their handy Works.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

…” And to the amazement and perhaps still greater alarm of Sofya Matveyevna, she suddenly patted her on the cheek.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In a work published as late as 1869 we may read such sentences as, "the clairvoyance of an idiot in a state of somnambulism would inspire me with more confidence if I were sick than the greatest geniuses which grace modern medicine;" and again, "it never could be imagined with what tact, accuracy, and precision, somnambulists account for anything that takes place in them.
— from Fact and Fable in Psychology by Joseph Jastrow

We wish that we could catch them all, to illuminate our pages, without any desire whatever that their rays should be withdrawn from those in which they are at present shining.
— from Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I by Various

Slaves to ignorance, slaves to idolatry, they are also political slaves; nor is there, so far as we can see, any better prospect for them in the near future.
— from Due West; Or, Round the World in Ten Months by Maturin Murray Ballou

But when his arms were round her he was not satisfied with one, he would take two, three, four, and she would wriggle in his arms and kick his shins and tell him that he had taken a mean advantage of her; and when he had released her she would vow that as a punishment she would not kiss him again—no, never, not once again, and then would add: "No, not for a whole week!"
— from The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel by Alec (Alexander Raban) Waugh

Had never seen any person enter the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten times.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Yet they possessed experience of actual war, and were accustomed to fatigue; whereas Otho’s troops were weak from their life of unwarlike leisure, for they spent most of their time in the theatres and at public shows, or else in their quarters, and affected such a degree of insolence that they refused to perform the necessary labours of a campaign, alleging that to do so was beneath their dignity, not that it was beyond their strength.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 4 (of 4) by Plutarch

She should visit her in proper time, and at proper seasons; she had just seen her father, and he had taken Master Boscawen in his arms, and pronounced him a very fine child.
— from The Manoeuvring Mother (vol. 2 of 3) by Bury, Charlotte Campbell, Lady

Now whether it was physically impossible, with half a dozen hands all thrust into the napkin at a time—but that some one chesnut, of more life and rotundity than the rest, must be put in motion—it so fell out, however, that one was actually sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddling under——it fell perpendicularly into that particular aperture of Phutatorius’s breeches, for which, to the shame and indelicacy of our language be it spoke, there is no chaste word throughout all Johnson’s dictionary——let it suffice to say——it was that particular aperture which, in all good societies, the laws of decorum do strictly require, like the temple of Janus (in peace at least) to be universally shut up.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I have to choose between them and a private sitting-room.
— from The Motor Maid by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson